Email your comments

As Dr Corrado stated in his article in the May newsletter, free re-sits of the Specialist Certificate Examination (SCE) have been confirmed for those sitting the examination in 2009 and 2010.

At present this is a short-term fix, and could be cynically seen as a way of maximising the numbers taking the exam in March 2010.

We have organised an interesting session for the Autumn BGS conference in Harrogate. Entitled “The SCE – Past, Present and Future”, it will take place on the Wednesday afternoon. We have some excellent speakers, including Dr John Mucklow who is Medical Director of MRCP, and Professor Marion McMurdo, who has been involved with setting up the educational resource; there is also going to be plenty of opportunity for discussion. The full programme can be seen on the BGS website. It should be useful for those who have to take the SCE, and very informative for those who don’t!

Dual Accreditation in G(I)M and Geriatrics
I am sure you are all aware that this has been re-instated for those starting higher training in August 2007 and 2008; it is also now going to affect those starting as ST3s in August 2009. The delay is currently in the approval of the new G(I)M curriculum; once this has been approved then trainees will be able to transfer onto it. Current advice remains to register your interest in transferring from the Acute Medicine curriculum onto the G(I)M curriculum with your programme director and deanery. In due course, there will also be a contact at PMETB who will need to be informed, but there is no confirmed name yet. The most important thing is make sure all assessments are up to date. It is likely that a ‘mini-ARCP’ will be held for each person who wishes to transfer onto G(I)M, to map assessments from the old curriculum onto the new one. Please remember that this will not be a passive process and one could easily be left behind. I will keep you apprised via all the usual channels as information becomes available.

e-portfolio
Professor Barrett, lead on the e-portfolio, kindly attended the Trainees meeting at the Spring BGS, and was able to answer some of the questions that arose. Following this, I received a letter from an ST4 trainee which I felt summed up many of the general concerns of the group. It is published on page 29, together with Professor Barrett’s reply. We are interested to hear of ongoing issues, please contact either myself, Adam Gordon or Peter Burbridge.

European Working Time Directive
I would be interested to hear if people are finding training in Geriatric Medicine adversely affected by this. There has been a lot of publicity around surgical specialties, but are clinics, community visits etc. also affected?

If you do not currently receive emails from myself and the other committee members, and would like to, please get in touch and I will add you to the mailing list.

Zoe Wyrko
Chair
Trainees Group

BGS Newsletter, July 2009
Issue 22 ISSN 1748-6343 22